Overview

For three decades, state-sponsored short filmmaking educated Danish citizens, promoted Denmark to the world, and shaped the careers of renowned directors like Carl Th. Dreyer. The first book-length study in English of a national corpus of state-sponsored informational film, this book traces how Danish shorts on topics including social welfare, industry, art and architecture were commissioned, funded, produced and reviewed from the inter-war period to the 1960s. Examining the life cycle of a representative selection of films, and discussing their preservation and mediation in the digital age, this book presents a detailed case study of how informational cinema is shaped by, and indeed shapes, its cultural, political and technological contexts.

Full Product Details

Author:   C. Claire Thomson (Professor, University College, London)
Publisher:   Edinburgh University Press
Imprint:   Edinburgh University Press
Weight:   0.373kg
ISBN:  

9781474452274

ISBN 10:   1474452272
Pages:   240
Publication Date:   07 August 2019
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Professional and scholarly ,  Tertiary & Higher Education ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Manufactured on demand  
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Table of Contents

AcknowledgmentsIntroductionChapter One - Enlightenment and utility: Informational film as useful cinemaChapter Two - ‘We are a little land’: Informational film and small-nation cinemaChapter Three - Mapping Messiness: The informational film archive & Actor-Network TheoryChapter Four - ‘The film world’s cooperative store’: Institutions and films of the 1930s and 1940sChapter Five - ‘A film-progressive nation’: The Social Denmark series and the British documentary movementChapter Six - ‘Somethin’ about Scandinavia’: Danish shorts on the post-war international sceneChapter Seven - ‘Citizens of the Future’: Informational film and the welfare stateChapter Eight - ‘A free hand’: The art film versus the art of documentaryChapter Nine - Symphony of a short film: A City Called CopenhagenConclusionReferences

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Author Information

Dr C. Claire Thomson is Professor of Cinema History at University College London (UCL), where she is the Director of Film Studies and teaches Nordic cinema and cultural history, as well as translation from the Scandinavian languages. Her previous publications include the monographs Thomas Vinterberg’s Festen (U Washington P, 2013) and Short Films from a Small Nation: Danish Informational Cinema 1935–1965 (EUP 2018), the edited volume Northern Constellations: New Readings in Nordic Cinema (Norvik, 2006), and numerous articles on short films, film and public health, multisensory cinema and the work of Carl Th. Dreyer and Thomas Vinterberg. She is an editor of the journals Scandinavica and Kosmorama.

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